I’ve had the same thought in my head for the last few months. Everyone’s talking about how to market your business (the Dave’s, Jonny’s, Naomi’s, Jonathan’s, Brian’s of the world), but NOBODY is talking about the chasm many people have to cross before they are ready to do this stuff effectively.

Confidence.

Nobody except you and I, of course. I was raving down the phone at Charlie Gilkey just yesterday that my approach fixes this problem, and I’ll be looking to spread the word about this more and more and more.

The distinction I always make is this – confidence is quiet, arrogance and ego are noisy. That means that you can be a quiet, introverted person and still market yourself confidently. I’m not a big shouty kinda guy, but I have enough confidence in my “stuff” to put it out there and talk about it with conviction.

Confidence is being able to choose your behaviour with implicit trust in that behaviour. Whether that behaviour is introverted or extroverted, the point is to use your own strengths and talents and have confidence in them.

Okay, stopping now before I write a couple of thousand words…
.-= Steve Errey – The Confidence Guy´s last blog ..Going Dutch =-.

There are a bunch of common assumptions that can screw you up pretty thoroughly. It’s important to draw some clear distinctions.

Introversion is not the same as lack of self confidence. Introversion is not neurotic and it is not a lack of anything.

Introversion by no means you can’t handle marketing, you just need to choose the right tools and techniques.

Marketing doesn’t have to mean being a great big social sharer and telling the world about every emotion that flitters across your mind. Brian Clark is a great example of a tremendous marketer who shares almost nothing of his personal or emotional life with customers.

Marketing yourself is not marketing your work.

And “if everyone did this, where would we be” arguments are purely mental exercises, since everyone is never going to do this.

Everyone has to figure out what works for them — for their product, for their personality, for their situation, for their constraints, for their strengths, for how they want to live their life, for the resources they can put out, etc.
.-= Sonia Simone´s last blog ..The Spooky Secret to Designing Your Perfect Business =-.

But people who prefer soluitude – even NEED solitude, abound. And if that mindset forms a pervasive part of the “creative stereotype” – perhaps there’s a reason. Myself, I’ve lived for 50 some years with Asperger’s Syndrome, which for me has been associated with acute shyness, social anxiety, inappropriate communication styles, etc. I do not expect to ever have a “normal” level of comfort in relationships, nor to be skilled at the various customary techniques of marketing. But I feel that at some point I might have something to contribute to society creatively.

Again, what I’m reacting to is not the idea that there is value in marketing oneself. It’s rather that increasingly we see it presented as a universal imperative. And even aside from variations in how marketing-oriented one is, I don’t think a universal “market yourself” paradigm can work in principle. If everyone is a brand, who are the consumers?

You said:

“You also can’t sell if you want solitude. Solitude means solitary means alone. Does anyone truly expect to be able to sell on the merits of their work alone without saying a word or seeing any other soul? I find that a highly arrogant mindset (and actually one I often notice in the creative fields). No one can simply walk out to the middle of the street, put what they do on a table and walk away expecting crowds to come up and be in awe of it.”

The quick, appropriate and notorious counterexample, who passed away just recently, is J.D. Salinger. I’m not sure exactly how Catcher in the Rye achieved its enduring status, but I doubt it was through book signings.

Best wishes,
-Steve